EPISODE 21: Someone Has to Go First: What a Survey Trip Actually Is

EPISODE 21: Someone Has to Go First: What a Survey Trip Actually Is

SUMMER SHORT-TERM TRIP SERIES: SURVEY TRIPS My favorite kind of short-term trip is the one hardly anyone is planning. The Short-Term Trip called a Survey Trip goes where no long-term workers live. Where if you look up the city in a missions database, you get back almost nothing. Where the people you ask say — no, nobody is working there right now. Not that we know of. In this episode I define what a Survey Trip actually is — not a Vision Trip, not a Professional Trip, but the specific kind of trip designed to make the unknown known, rip the doors of impossibility off your imagination, and come back with a Caleb and Joshua report: I was there, I saw it, here's what God can do. Then I tell the story of the Survey Trip that changed my life. Three years of waving around a photo of a white sand beach. A team of six brave, quaking, resolute souls. The kinds of things we did on that first survey trip to an unreached, unengaged people group where no long-term workers lived in the city of a million Muslims. You'll discover what a Survey Trip IS and how to plan one illustrated by this Survey trip that led my family and I to move there. I also give you the full Survey Trip objectives list — ten questions to ask yourself that will tell you if a  Survey Trip might be what God is asking of you next.   Resources mentioned in this episode: ✔️ Across the Street and Around the World [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/book] Book ✔️ What Kind of Trip Type are you Planning? [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/trips] Checklist ✔️ Group Training Package for the Inviting Muslims to Follow Jesus Course [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/grouptraining] ✔️ India From the Inside Podcast Episode 12  ✔️ Neighbors and Nations Course [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/nncourse] https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/quiz Subscribe: New episodes drop every Tuesday. Don't miss one! LISTEN NOW (UPDATE LINKS): 🍎 Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-20-be-useful-what-a-professional-short-term-trip/id1870961544?i=1000771735618] 🎤 Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Gz3vOXWCFM0gPmt2FCwhb?si=6e0d2f1d57264442] 🌍 My Global Goer Podcast Page [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/podcasts/the-global-goer-podcast/episodes/2149215298] Next episode — the Short-Term Trip Summer Series finale: a survey trip to southern Bangladesh. Two millennial vloggers, a retired businessman, a hired car, and eight million Bengali Muslims with almost no workers. The vlogs are on YouTube and you can watch along. Send me an email at hello@jeannie-marie.com [hello@jeannie-marie.com] and let me know what type of trip you're planning and if you'd consider a Survey Trip!    **It would mean the world to me if you could leave a Review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps people like you find this show.

EPISODE 20: Be Useful - What a Professional Short Term Trip Actually Looks Like

SUMMER SHORT-TERM TRIP SERIES: PROFESSIONAL TRIPS Last week I took you to Mumbai to show you what a Vision Trip looks like — the Red Light district, the Dharavi slum, Titus and his chai, the maps-on-the ground prayer meeting. That's a Vision Trip entering as a learner, getting more out than you give. Today is different. Today is about being useful. In this episode I walk through what a Professional Trip actually looks like — using a specific skill, at a specific invitation, to accomplish a specific task in service of long-term work that's already happening on the ground. I use Nehemiah as the model: he knew what he was bringing, he knew what was needed, he knew who was already there. Then I tell real stories across several types of professional trips: ✅ IT professionals serving field workers at overseas conferences ✅ My daughter's trip to the Philippines with me — and Dr. Melissa, a psychologist who showed up to care for exhausted long-term workers ✅ Entrepreneurs and business owners coaching Kingdom businesses overseas ✅ Teachers and trainers offering intensive skill-based training at the invitation of a field worker ✅ Retirees as grandparents and coaches — and why I think this is the most underused category of all I also give the three cautions for Professional Trips: ❌ Don't go without an invitation. ❌ Don't fold into a vision trip. ❌ Don't go directly to the local population without a cultural intermediary. Resources mentioned in this episode: ✔️ Across the Street and Around the World — Chapter 7, [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/book] full Professional Trip ideas list + all three trip type checklists ✔️ What Kind of Trip Type are you Planning? [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/trips]Checklist ✔️ Neighbors and Nations Course [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/nncourse] ✔️ World Changer Type Quiz [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/quiz] Subscribe: New episodes drop every Tuesday. Don't miss one! LISTEN NOW: 🍎 Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-20-be-useful-what-a-professional-short-term-trip/id1870961544?i=1000771735618] 🎤 Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Gz3vOXWCFM0gPmt2FCwhb?si=6e0d2f1d57264442] 🌍 My Global Goer Podcast Page [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/podcasts/the-global-goer-podcast/episodes/2149215298]   **Remember: The world is bigger than your zip code. Let's go!** Next episode: Survey Trips — the rarest trip nobody's planning, and the one that led to me moving my whole family to India. Send me an email at hello@jeannie-marie.com: [hello@jeannie-marie.com:] Are you a professional or retiree getting ideas of planning a trip like this? Let me know your ideas. I'd love to pray for you. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeanniemmarie [https://www.instagram.com/jeanniemmarie]

EPISODE 19: Let Me Take You to Mumbai: What a Vision Trip Actually Looks Like

SUMMER SHORT-TERM TRIP SERIES: VISION TRIPS Rather than tell you the difference between a Vision Trip and a Professional Trip and a Survey Trip (the three trip types), I want to show you what a Short-Term Vision Trip actually looks like. Not a slide presentation. Not a bullet-point list of activities. A real trip, with real moments, that did something real to everyone who went. I'll illustrate the true aspects of a great Vision Trip by showing you what it looked like to Vision Trip to Mumbai. In this episode I take you with me to Mumbai — one of the top ten largest cities in the world, home to about twenty-two million people, a majority Hindu and Muslim population, where families from every unreached people group in India likely live. I walk you through the Red Light District and introduce you to Sonita, Veronica, and Asha — three women running a one-room community center in the heart of the red light district where fifty-one women gained freedom last year.  I introduce you to the Dhavari slum, one of the largest in the world with 700,000 souls living on about a mile and a half of land. I tell you about Titus — a man of peace who pulled us off the street and into his home for tea. And I take you to the rooftop prayer meeting where we got on our knees and prayed Isaiah 58 over a city of twenty-two million. Woven throughout, I talk about: ✅ Why short-term teams cannot do in ten days what may take ten years to do — and why that's actually freeing ✅ The poverty alleviation caution: what we did NOT do in that red light district, and why it matters ✅ The naming problem: why calling domestic youth service trips "mission trips" creates confusion and false expectations ✅ What a vision trip done well actually produces — and the right way to talk about what you saw when you come home   RESOURCES mentioned in this episode: ✔️ Mumbai Photo Essay and Instagram Stories Highlight Reel [jeannie-marie.com/blog/111] ✔️ Search for #MumbaiPhotoEssay2019 [https://www.instagram.com/explore/search/keyword/?q=%23MumbaiPhotoEssay2019] on Instagram ✔️ Across the Street and Around the World [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/book] Book (Chapter 7: Short Term Trips) ✔️ Get the Trip Type Checklist [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/trips] ✔️ Use the Neighbors and Nations Course [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/nncourse] to train well before the trip. ✔️ Free One Hour Training: Offer Jesus Naturally to Your Neighbors & the Nations [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/freevideotraining] Next episode: Professional Trips  — real stories of real people who used their specific skills overseas, and what happened.

EPISODE 18: Why Most Short-Term Mission Trips Miss the Mark (And How to Fix It)

I have a confession to make. Years ago, I led a short-term trip to India with twenty-two people and the best intentions in the world. We stuffed twenty-two of our forty-four duffel bags with Beanie Babies for orphan children. We built a medical database nobody asked for. We spoke at a Bible school where no one understood our English. And when I came home, I felt confused, depressed, and deeply disappointed — and I couldn't figure out why. When I went back a year later, the Beanie Babies were in a caretaker's private room. The database had stopped working. The computers had died in the heat and humidity. And the school director had spent forty nights in jail on false charges. I hadn't known my WHY. In this first episode of the summer series on short-term trips, I'm talking about the one question that changes everything before a trip even starts — and what it looks like when a church actually gets it right. I walk through how my own church built a whole sequence of short-term trips in service of one long-term vision: getting long-term workers to unreached Muslims. Morocco, Turkey, Algeria, Bangladesh, and a survey trip — each one with a specific purpose, each one feeding the next. I also talk about why a short-term trip is actually a six-month trip — and why pre-trip training and post-trip debrief are just as important as what happens on the ground. Resources mentioned in this episode: * Across the Street and Around the World [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/book] by Jeannie Marie (Chapter 7: the full WHY checklist + pre-trip training framework):  * Neighbors and Nations Course [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/nncourse](the pre-trip training I built): jeanniemarieacademy.com/nncourse * Global Goer Quiz [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/quiz]: jeanniemarieacademy.com/quiz * Free Video Training [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/freevideotraining] Next episode: the three types of short-term trips — and why mislabeling yours might be the most expensive mistake you make.

EPISODE 17: Why Headship Theology Is Dangerous for the Nations (And for Women)

Why is it that women are often more unleashed in overseas movement contexts than in Western churches? And what does that tell us about the theology we've accepted without examining? In this episode, I'm wading into one of the most important — and most understudied and misunderstood — topics in global missions and the church: headship theology. I'll clearly define it, then address it honestly, from a perspective of my own learning. And yes, I'll make a case from the Bible for why I believes it needs to change. In this episode: ✔️ The story of three widows in their 40s who started a movement in the Muslim world ✔️ The Sunday morning that gave me pause  ✔️ What headship theology actually means — authority, covering (and the final-decision doctrine often taught but isn't in Scripture) ✔️ Complementarian vs. egalitarian — both believe men and women are equal in value; the debate is about role ✔️ Why women are more unleashed in overseas movement contexts — and what that costs the nations when headship theology proponents stop them ✔️ Spiritual gifts have no gender label — and what that means for who gets to lead ✔️ What ezer and kephalē could actually mean — and why it matters ✔️ A quick honest look at 1 Timothy 2, 1 Corinthians 14, 1 Peter 3, and Ephesians 5 ✔️ Why the submission passages are not a blank check — and why they've been dangerously misused in abusive situations ✔️ The curse argument — why building a theology on the fall instead of the garden doesn't make sense ✔️ The love and respect either/or framework — and why it doesn't hold up ✔️ What wives are really asking for when they say to their husbands, "I want you to be the spiritual leader" ✔️ A personal admission — my kids, my marriage, and the work I still have to do ✔️ The Reformation parallel — and why re-examining theology isn't the same as making it say whatever you want ✔️ The single women on the mission field point — and the inconsistency we need to name Whew, this is a long one. A necessary one. Let me know your thoughts hello@jeannie-marie.com [hello@jeannie-marie.com]    Resources mentioned: * From Genesis to Junia [https://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Junia-Honest-Search-Leadership/dp/0830785809] by Preston Sprinkle * Theology of Women Academy [https://cynthiahester.com/] with Dr. Cynthia Hester * Neighbors and Nations Course [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/nncourse] * Across the Street and Around the World [https://www.jeanniemarieacademy.com/book] book